Conventionally, in production of a semiconductor device, a lithography process using a resist composition has been carried out. Due to miniaturization of a resist pattern to be formed by the lithography process, the resist pattern is likely to collapse. In particular, after development of an exposed resist film, collapse of the resist pattern often occurred due to flow of a rinsing liquid in a rinsing step or when drying the rinsing liquid. As the rinsing liquid, water containing an additive such as a surfactant and an organic acid or pure water has been typically used.
As a method for forming a pattern that suppresses occurrence of a failure due to the collapse of a resist pattern, Patent Document 1 describes a method for forming a pattern, characterized by including steps of: forming a resist film on a substrate; selectively irradiating an energy beam on the resist film to form a latent image in the resist film; supplying a developer (alkaline developer) onto the resist film to form a resist pattern from the resist film having the latent image; supplying a rising liquid onto the substrate to replace the developer on the substrate with the rinsing liquid; supplying a coating film material onto the substrate to replace at least a part of the rinsing liquid on the substrate with the coating film material, which contains a solvent and a solute different from the resist film; volatilizing the solvent in the coating film material to form a coating film covering the resist film on the substrate; removing at least a part of a surface of the coating film to expose at least a part of an upper surface of the resist pattern and to form a mask pattern formed by the coating film; and processing the substrate using the mask pattern.
As a developer that does not cause pattern collapse during formation of a finer pattern, Patent Document 2 discloses a developer containing a curable resin different from a curable resin forming a resist film and an organic solvent.